London traveller may look out by the brilliant gas-light and see perfectly sober
papas and husbands alighting with their leather-bags after transacting their
day's business at the county town. There is a resident rector, who appeals to
the consciences of his hearers with all the immense advantages of a divine who
keeps his own carriage; the church is enlarged by at least five hundred
sittings; and the grammar-school, conducted on reformed principles, has its
upper forms crowded with the genteel youth of Milby. The gentlemen there fall
into no other excess at dinner-parties than the perfectly well-bred and virtuous
excess of stupidity; and though the ladies are still said sometimes to take too
much upon themselves, they are never known to take too much in any other way.
The conversation is sometimes quite literary, for there is a flourishing
book-club, and many of the younger ladies have carried their studies so far as
to have forgotten a little German. In short, Milby is now a refined, moral, and
enlightened town; no more resembling the Milby of former days than the huge,
long-skirted, drab greatcoat that embarrassed the ankles of our grandfathers
resembled the light paletot in which we tread jauntily through the muddiest
streets, or than the bottle-nosed Britons, rejoicing over a tankard, in the old
sign of the Two Travellers at Milby, resembled the severelooking gentlemen in
straps and high collars whom a modern artist has represented as sipping the
imaginary port of that well-known commercial house.
But pray, reader, dismiss from your mind all the refined and fashionable ideas
associated with this advanced state of things, and transport your imagination to
a time when Milby had no gas-lights; when the mail drove up dusty or bespattered
to the door of the Red Lion; when old Mr Crewe, the curate, in a brown Brutus
wig, delivered inaudible sermons on a Sunday, and on a week-day imparted the
education of a gentleman?that is to say, an arduous inacquaintance with Latin
through the medium of the Eton grammar?to three pupils in the upper
grammar-school.
If you had passed through Milby on the coach at that time, you would have had no
idea what important people lived there, and how very high a sense of rank was
prevalent among them. It was a dingy-looking town, with a strong smell of
tanning up one street, and a great shaking of handlooms up another; and even in
that focus of aristocracy, Friar's Gate, the houses would not have seemed very
imposing to the hasty and superficial glance of a passenger. You might still
less have suspected that the figure in light fustian and large grey whiskers,
leaning against the grocer's doorpost in High Street, was no less a person than
Mr Lowme, one of the most aristocratic men in Milby, said to have been "brought
up a gentleman," and to have had the gay habits accordant with that station,
keeping his harriers and other expensive animals. He was now quite an elderly
Lothario, reduced to the most economical sins; the prominent form of his gaiety
being this of lounging at Mr Gruby's door, embarrassing the servant-maids who
came for grocery, and talking scandal with the rare passers-by. Still, it was
generally understood that Mr Lowme belonged to the highest circle of Milby
society; his sons and daughters held up their heads very high indeed; and in
spite of his condescending way of chatting and drinking with inferior people, he
would himself have scorned any closer identification with them. It must be
admitted that he was of some service to the town in this station at Mr Gruby's
door, for he and Mr Landor's Newfoundland dog, who stretched himself and gaped
on the opposite causeway, took something from the lifeless air that belonged to
the High Street on every day except Saturday.
Certainly, in spite of three assemblies and a charity ball in the winter, the
occasional advent of a ventriloquist, or a company of itinerant players, some of
whom were very highly thought of in London, and the annual three-days' fair in
June, Milby might be considered dull by people of a hypochondriacal temperament,
and perhaps this was one reason why many of the middle-aged inhabitants, male
and female, often found it impossible to keep up their spirits without a very
abundant supply of stimulants. It is true there were several substantial men who
had a reputation for exceptional sobriety; so that Milby habits were really not
as bad as possible; and no one is warranted in saying that old Mr Crewe's flock
could not have been worse without any clergyman at all.
The well-dressed parishioners generally were very regular church-goers, and to
the younger ladies and gentlemen I am inclined to think that the Sunday morning
service was the most exciting event of the week; for few places could present a
more brilliant show of out-door toilettes than might be seen issuing from Milby
church at one o'clock. There were the four tall Miss Pittmans, old Lawyer
Pittman's daughters, with cannon curls surmounted by large hats, and long,
drooping ostrich feathers of parrot green. There was Miss Phipps, with a crimson
bonnet, very much tilted up behind, and a cockade of stiff feathers on the
summit. There was Miss Landor, the belle of Milby, clad regally in purple and
ermine, with a plume of feathers neither drooping nor erect, but maintaining a
discreet medium. There were the three Miss Tomlinsons, who imitated Miss Landor,
and also wore ermine and feathers; but their beauty was considered of a coarse
order, and their square forms were quite unsuited to the round tippet which fell
with such remarkable grace on Miss Landor's sloping shoulders. Looking at this
plumed procession of ladies, you would have formed rather a high idea of Milby
wealth; yet there was only one close carriage in the place, and that was old Mr
Landor's, the banker, who, I think, never drove more than one horse. These
sumptuously-attired ladies flashed past the vulgar eye in one-horse chaises, by
no means of a superior build.
The young gentlemen, too, were not without their little Sunday displays of
costume, of a limited masculine kind. Mr Eustace Landor, being nearly of age,
had recently acquired a diamond ring, together with the habit of rubbing his
hand through his hair. He was tall and dark, and thus had an advantage which Mr
Alfred Phipps, who, like his sister, was blond and stumpy, found it difficult to
overtake, even by the severest attention to shirt studs, and the particular
shade of brown that was best relieved by gilt buttons.
The respect for the Sabbath, manifested in this attention to costume, was
unhappily counterbalanced by considerable levity of behaviour during the prayers
and sermon; for the young ladies and gentlemen of Milby were of a very satirical
turn, Miss Landor especially being considered remarkably clever, and a terrible
quiz; and the large congregation necessarily containing many persons inferior in
dress and demeanour to the distinguished aristocratic minority, divine service
offered irresistible temptations to joking, through the medium of telegraphic
communications from the galleries to the aisles and back again. I remember
r />
blushing very much, and thinking Miss Landor was laughing at me, because I was
appearing in coat-tails for the first time, when I saw her look down slyly
towards where I sat, and then turn with a titter to handsome Mr Bob Lowme, who
had such beautiful whiskers meeting under his chin. But perhaps she was not
thinking of me after all; for our pew was near the pulpit, and there was almost
always something funny about old Mr Crewe. His brown wig was hardly ever put on
quite right, and he had a way of raising his voice for three or four words, and
lowering it again to a mumble, so that we could scarcely make out a word he
said; though, as my mother observed, that was of no consequence in the prayers,
since every one had a prayer-book; and as for the sermon, she continued with
some causticity, we all of us heard more of it than we could remember when we
got home.
This youthful generation was not particularly literary. The young ladies who
frizzed their hair, and gathered it all into large barricades in front of their
heads, leaving their occipital region exposed without ornament, as if that,
being a back view, was of no consequence, dreamed as little that their daughters
would read a selection of German poetry, and be able to express an admiration
for Schiller, as that they would turn all their hair the other way?that instead
of threatening us with barricades in front, they would be most killing in
retreat, "And, like the Parthian, wound us as they fly." Those charming
well-frizzed ladies spoke French indeed with considerable facility, unshackled
by any timid regard to idiom, and were in the habit of conducting conversations
in that language in the presence of their less instructed elders; for according
to the standard of those backward days, their education had been very lavish,
such young ladies as Miss Landor, Miss Phipps, and the Miss Pittmans, having
been "finished" at distant and expensive schools.
Old lawyer Pittman had once been a very important person indeed, having in his
earlier days managed the affairs of several gentlemen in those parts, who had
subsequently been obliged to sell everything and leave the country, in which
crisis Mr Pittman accommodatingly stepped in as a purchaser of their estates,
taking on himself the risk and trouble of a more leisurely sale; which, however,
happened to turn out very much to his advantage. Such opportunities occur quite
unexpectedly in the way of business. But I think Mr Pittman must have been
unlucky in his later speculations, for now, in his old age, he had not the
reputation of being very rich; and though he rode slowly to his office in Milby
every morning on an old white hackney, he had to resign the chief profits, as
well as the active business of the firm, to his younger partner, Dempster. No
one in Milby considered old Pittman a virtuous man, and the elder townspeople
were not at all backward in narrating the least advantageous portions of his
biography in a very round unvarnished manner. Yet I could never observe that
they trusted him any the less, or liked him any the worse. Indeed, Pittman and
Dempster were the popular lawyers of Milby and its neighbourhood, and Mr
Benjamin Landor, whom no one had anything particular to say against, had a very
meagre business in comparison. Hardly a landholder, hardly a farmer, hardly a
parish within ten miles of Milby, whose affairs were not under the legal
guardianship of Pittman and Dempster, and I think the clients were proud of
their lawyers' unscrupulousness, as the patrons of the fancy are proud of their
champion's "condition." It was not, to be sure, the thing for ordinary life, but
it was the thing to bet on in a lawyer. Dempster's talent in "bringing through"
a client was a very common topic of conversation with the farmers, over an
incidental glass of grog at the Red Lion. "He's a long-headed feller, Dempster;
why, it shows yer what a headpiece Dempster has, as he can drink a bottle o'
brandy at a sittin', an' yit see further through a stone wall when he's done,
than other folks 'll see through a glass winder." Even Mr Jerome, chief member
of the congregation at Salem Chapel, an elderly man of very strict life, was one
of Dempster's clients, and had quite an exceptional indulgence for his
attorney's foibles, perhaps attributing them to the inevitable incompatibility
of law and gospel.
The standard of morality at Milby, you perceive, was not inconveniently high in
those good old times, and an ingenuous vice or two was what every man expected
of his neighbour. Old Mr Crewe, the curate, for example, was allowed to enjoy
his avarice in comfort, without fear of sarcastic parish demagogues; and his
flock liked him all the better for having scraped together a large fortune out
of his school and curacy, and the proceeds of the three thousand pounds he had
with his little deaf wife. It was clear he must be a learned man, for he had
once had a large private school in connection with the grammar school, and had
even numbered a young nobleman or two among his pupils. The fact that he read
nothing at all now, and that his mind seemed absorbed in the commonest matters,
was doubtless due to his having exhausted the resources of erudition earlier in
life. It is true he was not spoken of in terms of high respect, and old Crewe's
stingy housekeeping was a frequent subject of jesting; but this was a good
old-fashioned characteristic in a parson who had been part of Milby life for
half a century: it was like the dents and disfigurements in an old family
tankard, which no one would like to part with for a smart new piece of plate
fresh from Birmingham. The parishioners saw no reason at all why it should be
desirable to venerate the parson or any one else: they were much more
comfortable to look down a little on their fellow-creatures.
Even the Dissent in Milby was then of a lax and indifferent kind. The doctrine
of adult baptism, struggling under a heavy load of debt, had let off half its
chapel area as a ribbon-shop; and Methodism was only to be detected, as you
detect curious larv?, by diligent search in dirty corners. The Independents were
the only Dissenters of whose existence Milby gentility was at all conscious, and
it had a vague idea that the salient points of their creed were prayer without
book, red brick, and hypocrisy. The Independent chapel, known as Salem, stood
red and conspicuous in a broad street; more than one pewholder kept a
brass-bound gig; and Mr Jerome, a retired cornfactor, and the most eminent
member of the congregation, was one of the richest men in the parish. But in
spite of this apparent prosperity, together with the usual amount of
extemporaneous preaching mitigated by furtive notes, Salem belied its name, and
was not always the abode of peace. For some reason or other, it was unfortunate
in the choice of its ministers. The Rev. Mr Horner, elected with brilliant
hopes, was discovered to be given to tippling and quarrelling with his wife; the
Rev. Mr Rose's doctrine was a little too "high," verging on Antinomianism; the
Rev. Mr Stickney's gift as a preacher was found to be less striking
on a more
extended acquaintance; and the Rev. Mr Smith, a distinguished minister much
sought after in the iron districts, with a talent for poetry, became
objectionable from an inclination to exchange verses with the young ladies of
his congregation. It was reasonably argued that such verses as Mr Smith's must
take a long time for their composition, and the habit alluded to might intrench
seriously on his pastoral duties. These reverend gentlemen, one and all, gave it
as their opinion that the Salem church members were among the least enlightened
of the Lord's people, and that Milby was a low place, where they would have
found it a severe lot to have their lines fall for any long period; though, to
see the smart and crowded congregation assembled on occasion of the annual
charity sermon, any one might have supposed that the minister of Salem had
rather a brilliant position in the ranks of Dissent. Several Church families
used to attend on that occasion, for Milby, in those uninstructed days, had not
yet heard that the schismatic ministers of Salem were obviously typified by
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; and many Church people there were of opinion that
Dissent might be a weakness, but, after all, had no great harm in it. These lax
Episcopalians were, I believe, chiefly tradespeople, who held that, inasmuch as
Congregationalism consumed candles, it ought to be supported, and accordingly
made a point of presenting themselves at Salem for the afternoon charity sermon,
with the expectation of being asked to hold a plate. Mr Pilgrim, too, was always
there with his half-sovereign; for as there was no Dissenting doctor in Milby,
Mr Pilgrim looked with great tolerance on all shades of religious opinion that
did not include a belief in cures by miracle.
On this point he had the concurrence of Mr Pratt, the only other medical man of
the same standing in Milby. Otherwise, it was remarkable how strongly these two
clever men were contrasted. Pratt was middle-sized, insinuating, and
silveryvoiced; Pilgrim was tall, heavy, rough-mannered, and spluttering. Both
were considered to have great powers of conversation, but Pratt's anecdotes were
of the fine old crusted quality to be procured only of Joe Miller; Pilgrim's had
the full fruity flavour of the most recent scandal. Pratt elegantly referred all
diseases to debility, and with a proper contempt for symptomatic treatment, went
to the root of the matter with port wine and bark; Pilgrim was persuaded that
the evil principle in the human system was plethora, and he made war against it
with cupping, blistering, and cathartics. They had both been long established in
Milby, and as each had a sufficient practice, there was no very malignant
rivalry between them; on the contrary, they had that sort of friendly contempt
for each other which is always conducive to a good understanding between
professional men; and when any new surgeon attempted, in an ill-advised hour, to
settle himself in the town, it was strikingly demonstrated how slight and
trivial are theoretic differences compared with the broad basis of common human
feeling. There was the most perfect unanimity between Pratt and Pilgrim in the
determination to drive away the obnoxious and too probably unqualified intruder
as soon as possible. Whether the first wonderful cure he effected was on a
patient of Pratt's or of Pilgrim's, one was as ready as the other to pull the
interloper by the nose, and both alike directed their remarkable powers of
conversation towards making the town too hot for him. But by their respective
patients these two distinguished men were pitted against each other with great
virulence. Mrs Lowme could not conceal her amazement that Mrs Phipps should
trust her life in the hands of Pratt, who let her feed herself up to that
degree, it was really shocking to hear how short her breath was; and Mrs Phipps